Twisted Tuesdays - Color Talk :: Patriotic Petticoats

About a month or so ago, I found the blog brandi girl:: a life inspired by color (I think I found it via Lorelei's blog). Obviously, anything with the word color in the title instantly gets my attention. I have really been enjoying her color palette posts where she shares a photo and creates a color swatch from that photo to use as color inspiration. (In fact, I will share a pendant inspired by the "vegas boneyard" shot soon.) I thought it might be fun to dissect the color I used in this new piece in a similar way. Color is a huge part of Totally Twisted and it is also something I think a lot of people struggle with. Depending on how this goes, you may see me dissecting colors more in future posts.

So, this new piece, it doesn't really have a name yet. Though my friend, Tricia on FB, suggested "Betsy Ross Does Donuts". The "Betsy Ross" part is sticking for me but not so much the doing donuts bit. It sounds somewhat inappropriate to me, lol. Hmmm... maybe "Patriotic Petticoats"? Yes, that fits. But we aren't here to name things, we are gonna talk about color today!

For me, when working with color, I tend to start with two main colors. In this case, it was purple and red. If we are getting specific, it was a transparent purpler ink blue and a rich transparent red. When I want to pull to seemingly unworkable colors together, I try bridge the color gap between them with different variations of those main colors. It is easier to think about it when you imagine a color wheel, but think of one of those fancy ones with more than 6 colors. How can we successfully get from purple to red on the color wheel?

Deeper, richer, shadow-esque colors are what help me move from one color to the next. I take that main color and add to it darker shades. As if that same color were in a different lower light. Then to add a POP, or a little spring to our step so to speak, I add one shade brighter than the main color. That gets our color palette sounding and looking a little something like this: blends of subtle eggplant, transparent purply ink blue, with rusty mauve, deep persimmon, rich transparent red, and pops of salmon pink and turquoise. I think how you describe the color combination has a direct connection to how well the colors work together. If it *sounds* beautiful, it most cases it will *be* beautiful. If I were just to say, "I made a necklace that is dark purple and bright red", with out seeing it in person, you might be thinking "that's prolly nasty." But when you describe the colors, as I did above, it works.

Now, don't even get me started on whether or not these are "trend" colors. I know a lot of people like to follow trends, and that is awesome! But at the same time, I don't think every day should be the same. You really mean to tell me you are going to where pale pastels for the next 3 months because someone on tv said it is what's popular? I think this necklace is just as wearable during the summer as it is in the fall. Pick your day! Not every day of summer is sunny and full of butterflies. I would wear this on a warm overcast say with a dark purple tank top and denim skirt.

Feel free to take the color combo above and use it as inspiration for a new piece! I would love to see what you make. You can add your photos to the Totally Twisted Designs Flickr Group. Just grab beads from your stash in similar colors and start creating.